Today’s Picture: The Cleansing of the Temple by Rembrandt
Jesus is Attacked: for assuming authority
Here we have a real reason for the Temple authorities to seek to remove Jesus from the scene.
He not only hits their pocket by removing the Temple market,
he disturbs the everyday running of the Temple and implicitly criticises them for allowing buying and selling within the Temple.
Challenge those in power
and the forces of ‘law and order’ will soon be ranged against you.
Today’s Prayer
Preparation: Begin by stilling, then dedicating the time of prayer to God and asking God that all you think, feel and imagine are for the glory of God.
Gift: Ask for what you desire. Suggestion: That I may have the courage to challenge when I feel it appropriate.
Setting: Imagine this vivid scene in the Temple at Jerusalem. Who are you, a disciple, Jesus, a seller of goods, a chief priest? Let the story unfold naturally and notice what happens and how you feel about it.
Mark 11:15-18 HCSB
Jesus and the disciples came to Jerusalem, and He went into the temple complex
and began to throw out those buying and selling in the temple.
He overturned the money changers’ tables and the chairs of those selling doves,
and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple complex.
Then He began to teach them:
“Is it not written,
My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?
But you have made it a den of thieves!
”Then the chief priests and the scribes heard it and started looking for a way to destroy Him.
For they were afraid of Him, because the whole crowd was astonished by His teaching.
Conversation: Talk to Jesus, how do you imagine he might reply to you?
Final Prayer: End with a formal prayer such as the Lord’s Prayer/Our Father.
Today’s Music
Today’s Music: Erbarme dich, mein Gott from St Matthew Passion of Bach sung by Tim Mead.
Click for the whole of St Matthew Passion by Bach
Your Next Move
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Donation
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